Little Altars Everywhere (17 page)

That evenin I took myself to our prayer service at Good Shepherd Temple and my church sisters come up and was so sweet to me. My best girlfriend Lucinda hugged me to her like she do, with that big self of hers that’s shorter than me by a foot, but full and brown and smell like warm biscuits. I just let her hug me there in the back of church and I could hear them all singin. I
got me a good church home. They look out for you when you in need.

Mister Big Shep he never fired us, never said nothin at all. He come round the next week with a mess of ducks already cleaned for me and Chaney to eat. Then later he give Chaney his gold El Camino. Said he was gettin hisself a new Ford anyway and wanted Chaney to have the El Camino. So we had us two vehicles that coulda took us anywhere we wanted to go. We coulda drove off Pecan Grove, straight outta the heart of Louisiana, to some other state and never come back.

But even though I ain’t a big one for countin sins, leavin outta here woulda been a sin in my book. Cause some people God give to you to look out after, and that just be how it is. I got to keep my gaze on them chilren till the day I die. Too many things can happen in the blink of a eye, and that’s why I count my blessings every single day.

That’s why I tole my girls, that’s why I tell my grandchilren: Don’t ever worry bout bein holy, babychild. Just keep your eyes wide open except when you sleep. Then let the Lord’s mighty vision see you through the night.

Little Shep, 1990

M
ama didn’t fool me.

Oh yeah, she tried. Saying, I’m going to shrivel up and blow away if you don’t give me some snuggles.

I believed her at first. Thought she was actually gonna kick the bucket if I didn’t snuggle with her right when she wanted. I thought, She’ll die and they’ll say it was my fault. They’ll say: He killed his mother because he wouldn’t hug and kiss her like she wanted. He wouldn’t let her rub that cold-cream face against his. Wouldn’t let that cotton nightgown float around him, smelling like her skin.

I still can’t take the smell of cold cream on a woman. Just a whiff is enough to start up one of the migraines. First thing I noticed when my wife, Kane, and I got together was how clean her face smells when she gets in bed. She never uses any cream at all. Washes her face
with plain old soap and puts maybe a dab of baby oil around her eyes, that’s it.

I give her three pair of silk pajamas for her birthday every year. Before we got married, I told her, Please don’t ever wear a cotton nightgown around me and I promise I won’t pick my nose at the table. And Kane said, You got a deal, Shep.

Mama acted like it was all normal, you know, like it was her right. I’m not sure what all she did with Sidda and the others—I just know what she did with me. They moved Baylor out of my room when I was in third grade. They added onto the house so we could each have our own private cell. No wonder she wanted to have us all in separate rooms. That way there wouldn’t be but one at a time to witness what she was up to.

My room was right across the hall from the bathroom next to Sidda’s. I would lay in my bed at night and hear Mama doing her nightly whatever in the bathroom. The woman spent hours on her face. I could tell exactly when she was finished because of the way she’d tap her toothbrush against the sink and then clear her throat. God, I hated those sounds.

Then she’d pad down the hall and say, Good night, Mister Walker, and Daddy would grunt something back, if he was even home. After that, she’d go into Sidda’s room. I didn’t want to, but sometimes I couldn’t help but hear them. My hearing was already bad in my left ear by then. It took the doctors a while
to diagnose it, but finally they said, You’ve lost eighty-three percent of the hearing in your left ear. Claimed it was from early exposure to guns and loud farm equipment. I could of told them exactly what it was, though: I made the hearing go out of that ear because it’s the one that faced the wall when I tried to sleep. I got tired of hearing all the shit you had to listen to in that house.

If Sidda convinced Mama she was already sleeping or if the bitch hadn’t gotten enough, the old lady would come into my room. And then it would start up.

I would kill someone before I let that kind of shit happen to Kurt or Dorey. Kane and me never let them sleep with us. Not even when they were tiny. I never crawl into bed with either one of my children. I’ve been careful from the beginning to watch how I hug them, kiss them, touch them.

Kane had to talk me into helping bathe them, she had to tell me it was okay. One evening I stood in the doorway and watched her while she lathered them up in the tub, their little ducks and boats floating in the water. Kurt’s hair all slicked back and Dorey’s chubby little arms. It was all warm and misty in the bathroom and Kane had her sleeves rolled up and her hair in a ponytail. She just looked so damn competent, so damn normal. But I didn’t want to go near the kids while they were naked. Finally Kane got up and put a washcloth in my hand.

She said, Shep, it’s alright! Go bathe your children, you’re not going to break them!

Kane only knows part of what went on at Pecan Grove. Sometimes I’d like to tell her more, but you just never do know how people are gonna react to things.

What was so sickening was the way Mama’d root herself down under the covers and say, Let’s snuggle. I need to snuggle.

Any time my mother wanted anything, she’d say, I
need
it. Then she expected people to give it to her. Like it was her fucking right. Like the right to water or food or air.

She’d sucker me into it by saying: Little Shep, let me tickle your back.

Well, I was a goner whenever anybody tickled my back. It worked like a drug on me. How in the world I kept on letting myself fall for it, though, I can’t explain. She’d start out tickling my back with her fingernails the way I craved. And just when I’d be drifting off, she’d start kissing me and her hand would start wandering.

Hell, it makes me want to puke just thinking about it. I wonder how it was for the rest of them. Was it just the same? Did she do the same thing with Baylor?

I know there was that one time out at the duck camp when Baylor and I had a little too much to drink and we got to talking about sex. Now he has got some problems. After he’d had four or five scotches that
evening, he told me: Bro’, most of the time I can’t even get it up. When I do, I just want to do it and get it over with. You tell anyone I just said that and I’ll call you a bald-faced liar.

I told him, Hell, Kane wouldn’t stand for that kind of stuff. She laid down the law to me about no drinking at home, and I flat-out had to toe the line. If I acted like that in bed, she’d kick my butt out of the house.

Baylor lit a cigarette and looked at me. We were sitting out on the porch and I was cleaning my fingernails with my pocketknife.

He said, You clean your nails just like the old man. Said it to me like it was an insult.

Yeah, little brother, I said. But at least I still want to get it on.

Yeah, he said, except when you’re knocked out with a migraine.

Baylor can be pretty damn depressing sometimes. Before that conversation ended, he told me he was actually thinking about getting hormone shots. A Walker man actually talking about hormone shots.

Anyway, here’s what finally did it for me. I got a crush on Bibi Crowell. God, she was the prettiest girl in sixth grade. Hair down to her waist, with these pink ribbons laced through it. Cute little nose and long eyelashes. That girl was born flirting. I adored her. I would of done anything for Bibi Crowell.

At the Catholic Youth dances when we danced to
gether, just smelling her was as good as Christmas. I’d be wearing an oxford-cloth shirt, cords, and matching socks. Clean ears and a dab of Canoe. Ready for action, man. People will never understand how sexy those Catholic Youth dances could be. Hormones zinging all over that parish hall! We’d try to get our bodies as close as possible before the Nazi chaperons came around, pulling us apart from each other, saying, Let’s see some daylight between you two!

Every boy in the whole place drooled to dance with Bibi Crowell. I had to wait my turn. But then one night—I remember it was around in November, before the holidays, in sixth grade—she turned down Pres Davis for a slow song. Flat out told him no.

So I stepped up and asked her to dance with me, and she said yes!

Man, Pres was a buddy of mine, and I still felt like king of the world. It felt so goddamn powerful to have her choose me.

Later that night Mister Gremillion dropped me off at home. He was always taking us home from things at night—Mama wouldn’t drive across the highway after dark, and the old man was nowhere to be found. It was around ten o’clock. Sidda was spending the night out, and Lulu and Baylor were in the den watching the TV, with a fire going, eating oatmeal cookies. I stoked the logs up a little and laid down with them in front of the fire and watched whatever was on the screen. But all I saw was Bibi’s face. All I could smell was her fresh
sweetness. I wanted to tell someone what had happened to me, but I didn’t have the words for it. Everything I laid my eyes on looked good, that whole house looked good, even my little brother and sister looked less weird than they usually did.

We polished off the cookies and turned off the TV. I went to my room, got undressed, and climbed in bed. I could smell the Tide on my pillowcase and feel how it was sort of crackly from drying on the line outside. Bibi Crowell had chosen me, and man, life was sweet. I laid back in my bed and smiled at the ceiling.

Mama came out of her hole after I’d been in bed for fifteen minutes or so. She walked in and sat on my bed. I made myself be perfectly still so she’d think I was already asleep.

How was the dance, Little Shep? she said, like I was about five years old.

I thought, Not tonight, Mama. Not tonight.

She said, Now don’t you try and play possum with me. I know you’re not asleep.

I rolled over and looked at her. She had on that pink cotton nightgown with the tiny flowers embroidered on the collar. I could make out those gargantuan breasts of hers hanging underneath. I know those breasts and I hate them.

She looked at me and whispered, Give me a hug, Little Shep. Give me a hug and a kiss.

Automatically I sat up and hugged her. She squeezed back real hard and I could feel those breasts against my
chest. I felt like throwing up, and then the tingling at my temples that comes just before a headache starts up. Out of nowhere I thought:
I hate her. I hate her guts
. The thought was sharp as a piece of glass. It felt great. Made me excited, like doing a cut-away off the high dive for the first time. I broke the hug and laid back down. The bitch stared at my chest.

She said, My God, before long you’ll be getting hair on this chest.

Then she reached down and started to rub her hand across one of my nipples.

She said, You are so beautiful, Shep. Sometimes I can hardly believe you’re mine.

Then all the thoughts went out of my head. It was simply my body doing exactly what it wanted to. I clamped my hand over her claw. At first she thought I was being affectionate, that I actually wanted to hold her fucking hand. But then when she tried to move her fingers, to continue her rubbing, I tightened my grasp over her hand as hard as I could. At first she looked confused. Then she giggled. I kept squeezing as tight as I could, like I had one of those fist-grip exercisers in my hand. I stared straight at her.

She tried her whining like a little girl. Little Shep, she said, Let go of my hand. Pretty please.

I squeezed even harder. I was hurting her, I could tell.

She said, Quit it! That’s too rough.

I said, Then get off of my bed, Mother. Go back to
your own bed. Get out of my room and don’t ever come back here unless I say you can.

Man, I couldn’t believe I was saying that! Something just got into me. I’d thought it before, somewhere in the back of my mind, but I’d never said anything like that out loud. It was the power of Bibi Crowell. It was the tiny little bit of down on Bibi’s cheek. That light little dusting of soft blonde hair on her skin, like on a peach. Like the sun had kissed her and left this little blonde fuzz behind. I’d deliberately brushed my cheek against hers during “Eleanor Rigby” so I could feel it.

Mama said, Don’t you ever speak that way to me again as long as you live, Shepley Abbott Walker.

I let go of her hand and got up out of the bed. She looked at me in shock. All I had on was my Jockeys. I opened my bedroom door and said, Get out.

Daddy wasn’t home yet. Lulu and Baylor were already asleep. Sidda was gone. No one could hear us. I was twelve fucking years old. At first Mama didn’t budge from the bed, but when she did, she moved quick. She lunged for me and landed a punch against my rib cage.

I didn’t hit her back. If I’d of hit her once, I would of never stopped. I would of killed her, I would of gone all the way.

She swung her hand back and smacked me hard in the face. Man, I didn’t even feel it. It was like I had something protecting me. The slap threw her off-balance long enough for me to get out of the room.

I didn’t go far. Just down the hall to the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator and poured a glass of orange juice, like I was somebody else’s kid in some other house. I could see the refrigerator light spilling on the tile floor. Just come in here, you bitch, I was thinking, just try one more thing with me. I could hear her going into the bathroom. Great, she’s taking a pee before she gets out the belt.

Then—I couldn’t fucking believe the timing—the old man’s truck pulled up. I could hear the gravel crunch and the way the sound changed the minute the tires hit the concrete driveway. I stood there with the refrigerator door open, staring at a plate of fried chicken covered with wax paper.

The old man stumbled in, drunked-up as usual. I could smell the Jack Daniels and cigarette smoke on him. I heard Mama open the bathroom door. She must of heard the old man too, because she went straight into her bedroom and slammed the door. I could hear her jam in the lock button all the way down the hall.

I said, Hey Daddy, you want some juice? Man, I knew the bastard didn’t want any juice, I just couldn’t think of anything else to say. I was tired. I’d done enough for one night.

For once he didn’t start anything. He just said, Son, you oughta be asleep by now.

Yessir, I said, that’s where I’m headed.

Back in my room, I could still smell my mother. I opened the window and turned my pillow over to the cool side.

Yessir
, I should of said,
Why don’t you kick in the door of the blue bedroom that used to be our schoolroom and screw your wife so good she’s exhausted, laying back with a stupid silly grin on her face? Why don’t the two of yall have a car wreck off a cliff in Acapulco?

I made my bed up and slept on top of the covers. I didn’t sleep on those sheets again till Willetta washed them. And I dreamed about Bibi Crowell.

God, Bibi Crowell was perfect. I love my wife, but she’s no Bibi Crowell. Bibi Crowell was a sixth-grade goddess. I still dream about her. She was my protector in my room in that brick house on the bayou. That stinking bayou of thick brown water that didn’t move. Stagnant water that was full of shit you couldn’t see, couldn’t guess at, didn’t even want to know about.